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Cardio Strategy For Getting Ripped.

Simply Eat Less.

In my experience in the Health & Fitness Industries over the last 3 decades, I have found that the decision to include mega-loads of cardio or hardly any at all swings through the bodybuilding culture like the pendulum of a clock.

There’s a new fad with a new name every few years or so, backed up by some new (limited) study and an awareness marketing campaign led by some famous ‘celebrity’.

Many who favour cardio claim that it allows them to eat more. That is good, right? Eating more is anabolic, isn’t it?

On the other end of the cardio spectrum, supporters of LESS CARDIO insist cardio is the most catabolic thing that can be done. They claim that it has to be avoided.

Solution they come up with: simply eat less.

So, should you do more or less cardio?

I won’t pretend to try to solve this dilemma but I will give you some facts, as I see it and have experienced it. Hopefully, it takes you closer to the doorstep of your ultimate condition.

It’s your BODY SHAPE, not BODY WEIGHT that MATTERS most.

The 80:20 Principle.

First, let’s clarify what is the actual goal in terms of physiology?

Based on one of Nature’s Principle (the 80:20 principle), the vast majority of “fat” in our body (over 80%) is collected in one form and stored in body fat cells.

The process that the body uses to consume this energy and effectively get rid of it – is called lipolysis.

I’m going to try to detail the mechanism of this process with exercise (avoiding diet for now).

In my experience of helping hundreds of individuals over the years is that I find that The difficult part is when : we have to apply these “truths” to the many different circumstances and body types that we find in the sport of Physique Artistry/Bodybuilding.

Become better at “being comfortable at being uncomfortable “ to keep your pendulum ticking … & your life, living

Everything is hormonal-driven.

Activity-related hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine speed up lipolysis greatly.

When we start working out, we firstly use the readily available energy in our blood, called GLYCOGEN. The body starts shuttling out these glycerol and fatty acids (fat) from our body fat cells.

research shows that the greatest increase in fat usage starts immediately upon exercise, hits a peak level within 5 minutes, sharply decreases, by the 15-minute mark starts to plateau, and within 30 minutes is back almost to a rate matching a control group.

So, what do we do with the common knowledge that carbohydrates (blood sugar/glucose) are used exclusively for the first 15-20 minutes of cardio?

As most of you are aware, blood sugar is the dominant source of energy used by the cells of our body at the start of exercise. As you do cardio, the body digs into longer-term energy stores, the liver (through the action of the hormone glucagon) starts pumping out stored glycogen and as described, body fat cells start releasing glycerol and fatty acids.

The question we then ask ourselves is – does the liver run out of glycogen? When it does, what happens then?

People ask – “why?” … I /My curiosity continually askS “why not?” Seek possibilities… always

As long as Body Fat is available …

It is quite obvious that When we are exercising, we are moving the body towards an Energy Deficit.

My understanding is that the body & in particular, The liver, tries to contribute to the energy deficit.

How does it do this?

it does so by converting amino acids into glucose. I’ve learned that the liver has a reservoir of aminos available. Despite this, this process is STILL a catabolic phase. And what is “catabolic?”

It simply means “muscle wasting “ or muscle deterioration.

Interestingly, though, even during the harshest, longest bouts of exercise, studies show that only 3 to 6% of energy is consumed from amino acid use.

As long as fat is available, the body spares protein as if it were the most precious commodity it has. Nice to know the brain agrees with us on that one. We need to dig a little deeper to get a better understanding of how the body tends to operate.

There are many variables we need to bring into the equation before we even address things like duration, frequency, and intensity.

Even a small percentage of amino acid use can add up if it’s a repetitive occurrence. I also mentioned “as long as body fat is available”…

Same weight. Different body composition. The right has higher Muscle: Fat Ratio. L: 15% body fat. R: 6-% body fat.

Body Type.

Many individuals don’t get to that stage (under 10% body fat) to worry about not having sufficient body fat available to be used as Energy, during exercise.

The variable of BODY TYPE is an important consideration when deciding HOW MUCH CARDIO an individual should do. There are 3 main body types – ectomorph, mesomorph and the endomorph.

What is your body type?

In my experience, An Ectomorph, has to have a healthy fear of “too much” cardio since they will be at the top end of the population in terms of using amino acids for energy. The more, the better, in their case.

In the middle of the spectrum, those that lose moderately slowly (like me) need to understand that muscle preservation is their greatest asset. We need to see cardio as a very necessary part of their daily habits and any kind of preparation for competition.

It has been and still is, a KEY daily habit of mine.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the Endomorphs. For these individuals, more, rather than less cardio is the way to go. They usually have a lower metabolic rate to begin with and tend to carry a very high level of fat deposits.

The more cardio, the better.

The Rate of Lipolysis.

Here is where armchair interpreters of research often start showing that it takes more than throwing some big words around to master the subject.

KEY FACT: The rate of lipolysis is virtually unchanged whether we’re at just 25% of our VO2 max or 85%.

That means that whether you’re walking on a treadmill or slamming out 30km/hour sprints, your body is releasing the same amount of body fat to be used.

Before you say, “Aha!! I knew that slower, longer cardio sessions were the right thing to do,” don’t!

You first have to differentiate between just releasing fat to be used and actually using it.

If you maintain a slow or high pace, a percentage of the energy will come from your fat cells . That’s a given.

In the case of the former, even though the body is releasing fat to be used, when it’s not used, it simply resynthesizes the glycerols/fatty acids and re-stored as body fat.

So, we then ask other key questions like:

1. Due to a slower rate of usage, should one just perform a longer duration and ultimately use the same amount of calories as someone doing a shorter but harder session?

2. Which will use more body fat and which will be less catabolic?

You should Keep in mind that the body has a vested interest in using these fatty acids for energy.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that Glucose and glycogen (the energy currency of our body & brain 🧠), aren’t in endless supply.

It’s obvious that when activity levels increase, the body needs to turn not only to its larger material source of energy, but it wants to be efficient at it. Remember that – it wants to be EFFICIENT AT IT.

As the RATE OF LIPOLYIS is increased, so is the blood flow to the exercising muscles, and so are the chemical processes that convert the fatty acids into usable energy.

TWIST IN THE ROAD.

Here is yet another twist in the road.

As intensity increases, these glycerols are used at a higher rate – a good thing. But, when exercise intensity reaches a level where blood flow is necessarily shunted more sharply to the working muscle tissue, blood flow to the available fat stores is restricted tremendously, decreasing the rate of fat that is made available to be used as energy.

That is why I tell all my former students that the OPTIMAL TIME to do cardio & burn more fat is first thing in the morning, upon waking and … on an empty stomach.

Like I said earlier , If we perform light cardio we release just as much body fat as high-intensity work. What is the risk of losing muscle here?

Answer: the risk of losing muscle is low.

However, but then due to a slower rate of fat usage, we simply re-store the released body fat.

So, you may be thinking – “why don’t We just do longer sessions of low-intensity cardio?”

Yes, you could but it would not be the most effective use of your time. And why?

Well, research shows after 30 minutes, fat release actually decreases – not increases as conventionally taught.

Trying to keep every variable straight is like trying to catch a greased pig. It’s like the squirrel in the animated movie Ice Age; as soon as you stick every available finger and toe in the leaking wall of ice, another confusing point of physiology springs out of a new crack.

No wonder there isn’t a consensus on the subject.

As I mentioned in the beginning of the article, you would be making a mistake if you take this article as covering every facet of the subject – think of this as just an outline and the book isn’t finished.

Seeing your progress, any progress, however small, is a motivating factor.

ACTION PLAN.

Read on for an action plan…

The ease of your body’s ability to burn body fat will affect how much cardio you do. This is depended on your body type & genetics.

Being that all of cardio is catabolic, you want to do the least you have to in order to be shredded.

For some that may mean twice a week and for others that may mean twice a day.

Consider two glaring facts:

One: Your body immediately starts releasing body fat with exercise and continues for 30 minutes until the law of diminishing returns virtually eliminates any further benefit.

If we are going at too slow of a pace, the released fat gets re-stored and if we get too high in our intensity, we shunt blood flow away from fat cells. As such, I believe, there are two types of cardio that we can benefit from and still meet our goal of sparing as much muscle as possible.

The first is thirty-minute sessions at a good pace – heart rate sustained at 130-150 beats per minute for most people. Remember, even at just 25% of our VO2 max we’re going to be releasing all the body fat that we can, but we need a pace that will actually use what is released, but not so much intensity that the body goes into a fight-or-flight mode channelling blood to the muscle tissue systemically and away from the adipose cells and organs.

The best natural bodybuilding athletes/champions know and understand how to do this better than almost everyone. Their “Double-edged sword” of keeping /maximising muscles and maximally losing fat is the challenge /opportunity.

I also believe the value of super-high-intensity cardio is tremendous but you have to weigh the catabolic effects and the fact that it won’t take long to be counterproductive and decrease the amount of fat actually being released (due to the changing blood flow patterns).

I would recommend using high-intensity sessions 1 to 3 times per week for 15 to 20 minutes to create longer-term fat usage through the increased metabolic effects.

Ectomorphs may have plenty by doing just 10-minute high-intensity sessions, but even endomorphs shouldn’t do more than 2 to 3. The amount of actual leg muscle recovery necessary should be a limiting factor – you’ll need to recover almost like a leg workout.

A major turning point in Alan’s life was coming to me for help. I helped him, help himself … build his bridge from where he was to … where he wanted to be. Saved his job … saved his marriage … saved his life.

Base-line

The “baseline” 30-minute sessions could be done daily or even twice a day for those who lose weight slowly or have more lower body stores to contend with.

That doesn’t mean that longer, slower cardio is worthless, you just get a fraction of the fat loss after the first 30 minutes.

Breaking up an hour of cardio into two sessions can net more fat loss if the pace is high enough and consistent. This is what I do. I try to do 30 minutes walk in the morning on a treadmill and another in the evening if I have the time.

The great thing about human performance research, however, is that we’re still very much in a pioneering phase.

Studies conducted with different variables keep adding to our understanding and more specific information is sure to be discovered.

For now, this is my story and I’m sticking to it.

Keep safe. Keep punching,

Until next time,

authenticness, awareness, balance, basics of training, beauty, better choices, Body shape, choices, Energy, Goals, long-term perspective, mind-muscle connection, muscle building, muscles, risk, safe training, symmetry, synergy, time, training, Vitality, workout, workouts, you

The Gym, Reps, Sets, Synergy and Workouts.

You perform your reps, sets and workout with one of the tools – dumbells, when you search for that ‘elusive pump’ feeling in the gym.

In my almost three decades in the ‘iron game’, I have learned many things.

About gyms, about people, about different training methods and styles, about perceptions, about limitations, about the mind, and about muscles, fat loss and body sculpturing.

I have learned a lot, filling my domain knowledge of subject areas that have always been fascinated about. And still am.

The Gym

I’ve always believed the gym was a micro-cosim of society. It is a metaphor for Life.

It does not represent reality – it tells (beautiful lies) about people. What it basically says, in my opinion, is I’m bigger or better than I really am. It is a kind of fantasy world.

But the gym is also not pure fantasy – it voices and indirectly describes and reflects, the real world (outside) by people the same people that make up the gym, by inventing little worlds that resemble it, loosely or closely.

I find it fascinating because, like Forest Gump said of life – “life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you’re gonna get.” That is exactly how I feel before each visit to the gym. You never know what you’re gonna get, like who will be there, what equipment will be available when you need it, whether the gym will be “packed to the rafters” or quiet and empty.

No, you never know what you’re gonna get.

The gym alters reality to allow us to ‘see’ reality better.

What I find most interesting is that the gym lies (if it is a good gym), to reveal the truth to you (about the world outside the gym).

Each person in the gym has their own history, their own story, if you pause and ‘listen to what they’re not saying.’ Each person’s story is a metaphor for an aspect of the Real World.

The gym, in a sense, and among other things, is allegory. What it gives you (if you’re willing to listen and look and feel) is the real world – indirectly.

Maybe, that is why the gym is appealing to many of gym-goers world over. Maybe, it just allows us ‘let be.’

It allows the world each person is creating within their minds to come into being for themselves and everyone else in the gym … by leaving the real world (outside) well enough alone.

Just for those minutes or hours they are in the gym.

The gym allows each user the ability to create their own worlds in their minds. That is one of the reasons why, I think the gym has been so appealing to me all these years because it is fundamentally, how real life goes.

You see, most people proceed each visit to the gym with ignorance and uncertainty; then they get glimpses of the ‘truth’ – their truth, or moments of understanding. And, if you’re like most people, you rarely (and usually too late) get to ‘see’ the whole version of reality.

The gym is, maybe, the TRUEST REALISM.

Members of my ‘extended family’ when I used to own and manage my gym for seven years. Some of the best and hardest years of my life so far. I loved leading the members (predominantly males – 70%) and they allowed me to take them to unchartered territories for us all. The gym was (unlike today’s) a social place. An ‘inbetween home’ between your place of work and your home. That’s me on the extreme left.

The workout.

Every workout is got to be about some part of the body or … I guess, these days, the ‘whole body.’ Every workout has got to be about something at the very least.

It doesn’t take much to do a workout – less still to do a set or just a handful of sets. In terms of action, I mean.

A workout to me is more than just a number of sets or selected exercises performed for a pre-selected number of repetitions. To some, a workout in the gym with traditional weight-training equipment is akin to a meditation hour or so. No, a workout is the pattern of a thing, a living thing – its rhyme and reason. It is what a moment or a memory or silence is about, if that makes any sense.

A workout does not need to be scientific. There are many types of workouts and I have tried and experimented with many over the last three decades.

To me, a workout is the genius of a thing. A workout could comprise just about anything, it may even be nothing. A workout is what you experience to write the story you are writing in the gym.

The Sets

A Set is simply, one tool a gym enthusiast might use to fulfil his goal to achieve a workout, the workout he or she imagines he is going to do. The set is, to some extent, a form of a workout in itself which uses action as its mode, usually in the form of a slight discomfort or pain.

The set intricately and closely connects one exercise to another, usually through a causal chain, ending in a moment of pain and pleasure or what I refer to as ending in a climax.

I have done thousands of sets since I began lifting weights in my late teens almost thirty years ago. To me, a set is a miracle and a mystery. A set is the track from somewhere to somewhere else – the start and the beginning of a mii-project, a small journey.

It carries the performer from silence to understanding, from nothing to something.

A set to a workout is like a river is to a whole catchment. Namely, everything. The part serves the whole; it is what the whole comes down to.

It is the point, the ‘dot.’

Sets alone or sets performed in no particular order mean something to the enthusiast but not much. I find that when I am doing a set, I am telling a part of my story, my life because what I am striving for ultimately is, meaning. And how does meaning arise when you’re doing a set?

It arises when I put the repetitions required to perform each and every set into an order in which I have learned to recognise a pattern of relationship (through the many thousands of sets and workouts I have performed over the last 3 decades).

I then derive meaning.

Over the years, I have learned to recognise relationships between sets and causality. We all have that gift for seeing and attributing meaning patterns – and for storing and repeating them in mind and workouts when recalling. We do this for almost everything in our lives, it is just easier on our brain as the brain relies heavily on autopilot, ultimately to conserve energy.

We humans, make sense of life that way, by learning how things interact, what causes what. The only thing is, like anything else, learning so, takes time.

Climaxing at the end of a set is one kind of pleasure, a lot of time, with pain thrown in to the mix. The completion of the pre-determined number of sets is not the point of the workout.

So, the point of a workout as I see it and story-tell, is in the ‘feeling.’

It is the feeling that allows one to build and soak in the ‘essence of the exercise.’ And how do you get the essence? That involves much, much more than just lifting a weight against gravity and moving the weight from point A to point B.

I will save that ‘find the essence of the exercise’ to another blog.

Providing a little bit of assistance. My pupil here ‘feeling the essence’ of the exercise.
All relationships require work and time .
Sometimes, its the little things, that determine your success in pursuit of a worthwhile goal.

Reps

Reps, is the shortened version of repetition. Part of gym lingo. It is the basic unit of a set and the building blocks of your workout. It is the number and tempo that dictates what kind of set you’re doing and the feeling you get at the end of the set (if you get any at all).

Not every rep is the same, just like not every golf swing is the same, using different clubs for different strokes.

Performing the rep is when you ‘get your hands dirty.’ It is when you feel the blood pumping excitedly through your veins. It is when you sweat. You sweat to earn those muscles. The rep is when you experience what I call a ‘continuous progression of focused moments.’

Some people call this meditation.

Everyone is at varying levels of meditation and are, ideally, working towards improving their meditation ability or what we, bodybuilders refer to ‘mind-muscle’ connection.

This is when you ‘feel the essence’ or what Arnold calls the ‘pump’. It is an elusive thing and not many gym rats get to experience this climaxing moment. It is the holy grail of lifting weights. It is one of the factors that separate real bodybuilders from the gym rats.

So-called self-help gurus have, for decades now, spoken about how one can ‘get in touch with one’s inner-self. Well, I have news for everyone, bodybuilders, real, authentic bodybuilders have been their inner-self for over a hundred years now.

Bodybuilders have a very highly level of understanding of getting in touch with one’s inner-self, because you couldn’t really get any more any ‘in touch’ with yourself then getting in to the individual cell, with vitality-infused blood.

Feel the essence, I say!

Fully focused!
A true warrior & champion. Phil applying principles in one of my programs and adopting my framework.
Focusing on making every repetition of every set of every exercise as ideal as possible.
Practise does not make perfect – Perfect practise makes perfect!
Photo: Retired Champion Ex-Australian Wallaby Captain & NSW Waratahs Captain and player in action under my watchful eyes.

Synergy

Sets alone or sets carried out in no particular order could mean success … but very little: Second set, 8 to 12 reps, power on the positive, control on the negative with a 2-1-3 tempo! Oh, I get it. A workout is completed; sense of achievement arise. How does that happen? It happens because the gym enthusiast/bodybuilder puts the sets in an order in which he has learned to recognise a pattern of relationships and so can derive satisfaction and purpose. It happens because of the innate human avidness of the human GIFT for seeing and attributing meaning to patterns – and for storing and repeating them in mind and body and spirit (dare I say, speech).

We humans make sense of our life and in the world we live in by learning how things interact, what causes what. The way every cause has its effect; the way every action has its actor, its object and its consequence. So, most gym rats learn that for every

What I am trying to say is that put a man and woman who like the look of each other in a place together and what you’ll get pretty soon, among other things, is someone doing something; and someone doing it back; and two people doing something together. What you get is ‘synergy’.

Sex; a relationship; perhaps issues. What you get is sets performed – simple, compound, complex and compound-complex, fragments and fractals.

What you get is synergy.

Anyone can ‘lift weights’, but unfortunately, not many can lift weights with synergy. And how do you do you make those reps, those sets perform their alchemy and achieve synergy and purpose.

I have found that one can learn the many different types of training ‘techniques’ and ways of lifting without ever knowing what the essence feels like. Just like you can understand the whole scheme of evolutionary history, without ever knowing why a minah bird moves exactly, and with such intelligence, as it does – why that is necessary and how it came to pass.

Achieving and feeling the essence and flowing with synergy in your workouts is another lively mystery.

A tip: one needs to learn rhythm. This comes after years of deliberate mind-muscle-heart-spirit practise. One of the greatest joys of doing a workout is not just achieving synergy but also making music within.

That is when you get hold of ‘that mystery’ and master that miracle within.

Good repetitions of good sets of good exercises performed well, amongst other variables, performed with synergy and music .. .makes for a good workout.

And the more balanced and elegant one’s sets are, the sounder they are structurally, the better one’s workouts will be.

You approach what I refer to as the ‘state of beauty’ … an enlightened state that brings you closer to balance and symmetry, a state of finite bliss. A state of enhanced balance and symmetry, when done correctly.

Not many gym enthusiasts ever get to that state. That is ok, most don’t. … and most don’t know how to, either.

Until next time,

Captain Viking Pirate Vaughn-Van-Valentine (VvV)

Collage of some bodybuilding poses

Collage of members of my gym in action … many, many years ago.

Quality Plan + Quality Implementation allowed Team Valentine (my wife & I) to beat the best in the sport here in Australia and stand on the stage against the best in the World.

life, mind-muscle connection, muscles, training

Focus on the muscles you don’t see in the mirror.

A good teacher is hard to find but finding a good student is even harder. Plan the work - to work the plan. Photo: discussing fine points of one of my programs with retired legend of rugby - Phil Waugh.

We do more things in the front of us than we do in the back. It’s easier and comes more naturally.

That is the same for your muscles – it’s easier to focus on the muscles (the ‘mirror muscles’ as I call it) as you train them. Even then, a lot of trainees don’t really feel the essence of the exercise. The great Arnold Schwarzenneger referred to it as the ‘pump’.

“here we go … 1, 2, 3 …. (counting, while looking at himself in the mirror) … 4, 5, 6 (thinking – yes, I can see my biceps in the mirror … yes … 7, 8, … yes, I think I can feel it finally …. 9, 10). Stop!

A typical set performed by a physique trainer (by definition, any person who lifts a weight to improve their strength, appearance, health or fitness is a ‘bodybuilder’).

Most trainees struggle to feel continuous tension of the working muscles and maybe lucky to feel the last 1 or 2 reps in a set. Not good for maximizing muscle in the time you spend in the gym. This comes with increased awareness of proper technique in exercise execution.

Training your mirror muscles (the societal favourites – the chest, biceps, delts and abdominals is important but I believe, not as important as focusing on the muscles that you don’t see in the mirror, the muscles you can’t see.

These would include – your trapezius, rear delts, upper and lower back, glutes, hamstrings and calves. Why do most gym enthusiasts favour the mirror muscles?

Simple answer: it is easier.

Ex-Australian Wallaby Captain - Phil Waugh performing a set of squats.

The thing is focusing on your mirror muscles while training is a helluva lot easier than trying to focus on the muscles you can’t see.

I believe it is very, very important and well worth the effort to connect and experience that ‘mind-muscle connection’ that many of you would have either heard about or felt. This is put in practise in full when focusing on the muscles you cannot see.

There are many benefits of prioritizing the muscles you can’t see. In my over two decades of training and helping hundreds of individuals, three real benefits of focusing on the muscles you don’t see in the mirror are:

It reduces risk of injuries. By the time a person starts weight training, he or she would have spent most of his or her life building and predominantly using the anterior chain muscles (muscles in the front of the body). Bringing up the rear muscles would enhance balance of skeletal mass which would lower risks of injuries.

Accelerates the growth of the mirror muscles. Most men dream of building a bigger, more shapelier pectoral muscles (chest) and bigger arms (biceps) – the popular mirror muscles.

So, the majority would naturally do more sets of exercises to work these muscle groups thinking that more sets will build bigger muscles. Big mistake.

More sets and more weight does not necessarily build a bigger chest or arms, only increases your risk of injury to the most common joint injury: the shoulder (deltoids). The thing is there is a safer approach. If you work and train the muscles you can’t see in the mirror like the triceps and rear delts and the upper and middle back, your ability to do the chest and biceps exercises would increase.

Better balance and symmetry. With better balance and symmetry you don’t run the risk of suffering from postural problems which a majority of the population seem to suffer from, especially the aged.

Better balance and symmetry will give you less aches and pains in the joints and have better mobility and have less chance of seeing physios and chiros for problems cause by muscle imbalance. After all, its body shape, not body weight, that matters. Remember this: most, if not all, joint issues stem from muscle imbalances.

Loading the 'guns' with proper execution. Here Brad is building his 'mind-muscle' connection under my watchful eye.

Are you struggling to or not sure how to focus on the muscles you can’t see in the mirror? Here are three things I think could help you focus on these muscles and get the most benefit from:

Close your eyes. Use your imagination and ‘see’ the world from the muscles point-of-view. Shutting your eyes will help you tune in to your muscles and rid your mind of distractions. I wouldn’t recommend this approach for all the exercises due to the obvious dangers. Don’t use this approach when doing standing exercises like, say, deadlifts ( I like to call them “happy lifts’).

This method is ideal for lat-pulldowns or 1-arm dumbbell rows or leg curls. For the best results, effort alone is not enough. One must also use one’s imagination.

Practise posing. I’ve always said different sports require different habits to be relatively successful at it. For example, a soccer player needs to practise dribbling skills, passing and a rugby player has to be able to pass and kick and tackle. All this is done in the appropriate playing field.

Back double biceps in the gym. Practise posing in the gym is important for enhancing that 'muscle-mind connection'. Vital for growth and progress. Increases your awareness of yourself.

When you’re in the gym, you need to also practise the habit of posing. This is the appropriate ‘playing field’ for a person training with weights. This may seem very ostentatious, but it shouldn’t be as it is a great feedback mechanism that allows you to improving overall balance and symmetry.

Isometric tension of any muscle group through the holding of a particular pose (say ‘front-double biceps’ for example) helps stress or ‘pump more blood’ in to the muscle area. Especially if you do the posing immediately following a set.

Do this: after finishing a set of exercise, strike a pose! Aim to tense and tighten the respective muscle group for up to 8 seconds. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze!

The power of touch. If you have a training partner, terrific. You can simply ask him or her to lightly place his hand or fingers on the area of the muscle group that you’re working as you exercise. There is a definite neuro-muscular connection. This method can help you assess whether you’re using the muscle fully or you are cheating by using other surrounding muscles. More weight lifted does not necessarily equate to bigger muscles.

To build good, clean, quality muscles, remember to leave your ego at the door.

All the best in your journey towards your BEST.

Eat well. Train well. Rest well. Repeat.

Until next time,

Night before contest in NY, USA. Placing: 4th in the World at the World Natural Bodybuilding Championships.

Seek balance and symmetry in all areas of your life. Spiritual balance is very important. It will align you with life's energy better. It will help you get internal/external balance. Vv.

Changing lives. Empowering people. One life at a time.

Triple A to Life: Awareness. Action. Adaptation.

Tag Archives: pump

Cardio Strategy For Getting Ripped.

The Gym, Reps, Sets, Synergy and Workouts.

Focus on the muscles you don’t see in the mirror.